North Dakota lawmakers voted on Friday afternoon to pass a “personhood” abortion ban, which would endow fertilized eggs with all the rights of U.S. citizens and effectively outlaw abortion. The measure, which passed the Senate last month, passed the House by a 57-35 vote and now heads to a ballot vote, likely in the next November election.

A personhood ban could have far-reaching consequences even beyond abortion care, since it will charge doctors who damage embryos with criminal negligence. Doctors in the state say it will also prevent them from performing in vitro fertilization, and some medical professionals have vowed to leave the state if it is signed into law.

A transgendered teacher, who had previously been monstered in the national press, apparently for having the temerity to exist in front of people's children, was found dead in an apparent suicide. As this article points out, there is no proven link so far to the media coverage, but what Richard Littlejohn wrote was absolutely, irredeemably fucking vile even by his already low standards. And extremely stupid.

If, as a parent, you're not able to adequately and simply explain to your kids that some people choose to change their gender in order to be happier, what hope do you have of explaining death? Or war? Or famine? Or even British Summer Time? Or cats? I could explain that to my four year old and she'd accept it and understand it without flinching. Why the fuck is it a cause of shame or embarrassment to say that?

"The school shouldn't be allowed to elevate its 'commitment to diversity and equality' above its duty of care to its pupils and their parents.

It should be protecting pupils from some of the more, er, challenging realities of adult life, not forcing them down their throats.

These are primary school children, for heaven's sake. Most them still believe in Father Christmas. Let them enjoy their childhood. They will lose their innocence soon enough."

Fucking horseshit Richard. It's nothing to do with the children, is it? If they're 'confused' by some aspect of life, it's your damn JOB as a parent to guide them. That's the responsibility you took on when you chose to bring a human being into the world. If you're too much of a damn coward to do that, don't become a parent.

In the 1960s, the Central Intelligence Agency recruited an unusual field agent: a cat. In an hour-long procedure, a veterinary surgeon transformed the furry feline into an elite spy, implanting a microphone in her ear canal and a small radio transmitter at the base of her skull, and weaving a thin wire antenna into her long gray-and-white fur. This was Operation Acoustic Kitty, a top-secret plan to turn a cat into a living, walking surveillance machine. The leaders of the project hoped that by training the feline to go sit near foreign officials, they could eavesdrop on private conversations.

The problem was that cats are not especially trainable—they don’t have the same deep-seated desire to please a human master that dogs do—and the agency’s robo-cat didn’t seem terribly interested in national security. For its first official test, CIA staffers drove

Acoustic Kitty to the park and tasked it with capturing the conversation of two men sitting on a bench. Instead, the cat wandered into the street, where it was promptly squashed by a taxi.

@Wood - I should not find that so hilarious, but I do. I mean, I feel sorry for the cat - especially since it got run over. But everything else about it... seriously guys? Clearly the CIA mad scientists needed a reminder about the basic realities of cats.

Burmese monks have often been involved in sectarian violence, with anti-Muslim protests in Mandalay led by the saffron-robed religious leaders last year. Meikhtila is no different. One monk, who wielded a foot-long sword, threatened an Associated Press journalist and demanded his camera, while other monks attempted to drag a group of reporters out of a van.

Peter Scott, who has died aged 82, was a highly accomplished cat burglar, and as Britain’s most prolific plunderer of the great and good took particular pains to select his victims from the ranks of aristocrats, film stars and even royalty.

Always a meticulous planner, Scott bought a new suit before each job, so that he would not look out of place in the premises he was burgling. Fear, the possibility of capture, excited him.

During one break-in “a titled lady appeared at the top of the stairs. 'Everything’s all right, madam,’ I shouted up, and she went off to bed thinking I was the butler.” On other occasions, if disturbed by the occupier, he would shout reassuringly: “It’s only me!”

To the impassive detectives who arrested him, Scott quoted a line from WE Henley: “Under the bludgeonings of chance, my head is bloody but unbowed.” He often drew on literary allusions, quoting Confucius, Oscar Wilde and Proust.

“The people I burgled got rich by greed and skulduggery. They indulged in the mechanics of ostentation — they deserved me and I deserved them. If I rob Ivana Trump, it is just a meeting of two different kinds of degeneracy on a dark rooftop.”